Friday, October 18, 2013

The feminist freak out over Emily Yoffe’s advice to her
teenage daughter has crossed the pond.

This morning Olivia Fleming reports on the firestorm in the London Daily Mail. Apparently, she could only
find one author who dared defend Yoffe—that would be your humble blogger—so she
quoted my post on the subject. I would have been happier if she had remembered
to link my post, but, all told, I am proud to have been quoted in the Daily
Mail.

If there is a moral to this kerfuffle it is this: when
passions are enflamed, reason goes on leave.

Feminists are so consumed with hatred over rapists—with good
reason, one might add—that they fail to make the most elementary rational
distinction. Telling a young woman not to take an unnecessary risk in no way,
shape or manner excuses rape. A woman who drinks herself to the point of
blacking out is not asking for it. No one believes that. It is not the issue.

Yoffe was saying that such a woman is making herself
unnecessarily vulnerable to assault. Is that not something that a mother should
tell her daughter?

If the outrage over rape was a deterrent, we would be having
fewer rapes. We do not, so perhaps it is not the best way to solve this
problem.

Some who have taken issue with Yoffe recommend that we teach
men not to rape. But, whatever makes you think that young men are being taught
to rape or that young men do not know very, very well that rape is an extremely
serious crime? Does any man not know that if he is convicted of rape he will
receive an extreme punishment?

'She [Yoffe]
gives up on catching and punishing them, in favor of telling women that they
can’t do something that men take for granted the right to do,' he writes.

Millar’s last sentence tells us that he not expert in English
grammar. The sentence is illiterate.

When Millar talks about a “right” that men take for granted,
he is talking about the right to get completely wasted on alcohol.

Since when is that a “right” that we need to defend? Since
when is that a hallmark of anyone’s liberation?

Writing for her daughter Yoffe was counseling moderation in the consumption
of alcohol. She did not address the question of how to punish rapists or even
how to deter them from doing it.

And Yoffe never said that no one should ever have another
drink. She was not proposing a return to Prohibition. She was arguing for
moderation. Her detractors seem to think that moderation is equal to
repression.

In the Huffington Post Emma Gray also suggested that, by
counseling moderation Yoffe was blaming the victims. She made it sound like
Yoffe was saying that women who get raped are at fault and that the men who rape
them are not.

Again this is an absurd distortion.

Fleming reports:

Emma
Gray, editor of Huffington Post Women, agrees. 'Have we lost so
much faith in our male population that instead of publishing columns telling
young men to stop raping tipsy women -- or encouraging the expansion of
programs on college campuses that work to educate students about such matters
and prevent sexual assault -- some of us believe it is most effective to tell
women not to drink at all?' she asks.

'We
need to place the burden of blame for these assaults squarely where it belongs
-- on the shoulder of those individuals who choose to commit them.'

Since Yoffe never blamed young women for getting raped, one does not quite
understand what Gray is trying to say. She makes a serious error when she
conflates binge drinking with getting “tipsy” and declares that Yoffe wants women
not to drink at all.

Many of those who denounce Yoffe make recommendations that would
naturally lead to more and better policing.

Amanda Hess wrote this:

We can
prevent the most rapes on campus by putting our efforts toward finding and
punishing those perpetrators, not by warning their huge number of potential
victims to skip out on parties.

Colleges
can start changing those structures by refusing to put the onus on victims to
prevent their own assaults and instead holding perpetrators accountable for the
crimes they commit—often, while drunk.

How much extra policing would accomplish that goal? Should
armed guards be stationed at fraternity parties? Should men be banned from
women’s rooms and vice versa? Should young couples have chaperones? Does Hess
believe that we as a culture do not hold perpetrators accountable for the
crimes they commit?

The truth is, the only people who dare suggest that
rapists should be excused for misreading signals are their defense attorneys. I
trust that even they do not believe what they are saying. Does the legal system
need to be reformed or does Hess want us to deprive those accused of rape of a
fair trial and competent counsel? Would she prefer to see extra-judicial
proceedings, run by college administrators and students deal with the problem
of on-campus rape?

And if she would, what would she say to the young men who
are falsely accused? What would she say to the young men who have been
wrongfully convicted of the crime?

Alexander Abad-Santos wrote on the Atlantic Wire:

… these
people [women who binge drink] aren't breaking the law, yet they're the ones being targeted and asked
to compromise their lives. What about teaching men not to rape?

What about teaching Abad-Santos how to think? Why does he
imagine that a young woman who is told by her parents that it is a bad idea to
binge drink is being asked to compromise her life?

Again, how exactly do you teach men not to rape?

Presumably, he favors sensitivity training where men are
taught to pepper their amorous advances with requests for permission.

But, don’t these classes assume that all men are potential
rapists and all women are potential victims? How do you promote more loving
relationships between men and women when you start out accusing young men of
being potential rapists and young women as potential victims?

Fleming closed her article with a remark of mine: the best
approach to reducing sexual assault on campus is to teach young people to
respect each other.

She might have mentioned that it is also a good idea to
teach men that they have a fundamental moral obligation to protect and defend
women. You cannot teach people not to do something without teaching them to do
something constructive in its place.

2 comments:

This is reminiscent of the campaign in the 80s, which saw fit to label men, all men, as potential abusers. This could only have been conceived by individuals and cooperatives who either do not respect or acknowledge individual dignity. It really is a corrupt perspective of reality. It serves to sponsor prejudice in men and women.

As for rape, rape-rape, or whatever they call it, it is generally involuntary or superior exploitation, and it is not restricted to physical violations. These "feminists" should reassess their strategy and tactics. They are part of the problem.

The principles that need to be taught are respect individual dignity and acknowledge an intrinsic (i.e. unearned) value of human life.

Liberty is only suitable and possible for men and women capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior.